A look at some rare Birds

November 30, 2003|By Luann Grosscup.

The Early Birds, founded in 1927, had a membership of 598 early aviators at its peak. Included here are profiles of several noteworthy members, and one, Lincoln Beachey, who qualified yet never officially joined the organization.

Reinhardt Ausmus, 1896-1970

Raised as an orphan and poor, Ausmus grew up resourcefully. In the time he was building his airplane, he sacrificed meals, living on coffee and stale rolls, to pay for materials for the plane. Unable to purchase lumber from a store, Ausmus would find wood planks in the country, cut the pieces for the aircraft with a secondhand saw, then finish the pieces by scraping and whittling them with a piece of broken glass. It took him two years to build the plane, finishing it in 1912.

Lincoln Beachey, 1887-1915

Lincoln Beachey began his aerial career as a balloon aeronaut, but transitioned to "heavier than air" craft in 1910. He became one of the country's top stunt aviators, setting altitude records and flying over Niagara Falls. He was accused of "setting a bad example" by his feats of derring-do, and the press blamed him for the deaths of fellow aviators who perished trying to emulate his stunts. Others revered him as a skilled flier who paid a great deal of attention to safety issues. Beachey died in 1915 at a crash at a San Francisco exhibition.

Georgia `Tiny' Broadwick, 1893-1978

At 85 pounds and 4 feet tall, Broadwick (born Georgia Ann Thompson) made her first parachute jump at a time when women weren't allowed to show their ankles in public. Her jumping career, which began in 1908, netted her more than 1,100 jumps before she made her last one in 1922. Broadwick is credited with demonstrating the first parachute jump for the U.S. military in 1914. Never wanting to be too far from the aviation scene after she retired from jumping, during World War II, she worked in an airplane factory.

A. Roy Knabenshue, 1876-1960

At 5, Knabenshue became interested in balloons. As an adult, he began performing balloon flights at carnivals as "Professor Don Carlos." He transitioned to dirigibles at the St. Louis World's Fair in 1904, Knabenshue becoming a substitute for the original pilot whose weight made the craft too heavy to take off. Knabenshue's name became synonymous with dirigibles and by 1917, he formed the Knabenshue Aircraft Corp., producing dirigibles, balloons and parachutes. He later worked for the U.S. Interior Department surveying air routes.

Frank Purdy Lahm, 1877-1963

Lt. Lahm won the first international balloon race held in Paris in 1906. He became the first U.S. Army officer to fly as a passenger in a plane when he flew with Wilbur Wright in 1908. Lahm was a member of the U.S. Air Service's balloon section and later became the Army's only balloon, dirigible and airplane pilot. In 1917, Lahm, then a captain, took command and expanded the balloon school at Ft. Omaha, in Nebraska, and helped implement balloon training throughout the military. He retired from the military as a brigadier general.

Grover C. Loening, 1888-1977

Loening received the first master's degree in aeronautics in the U.S., from Columbia University in 1910. He went to work for the Queens Aeroplane Co. in New York, producing planes for exhibition pilots. One of his books, "Military Aeroplanes," was used for training by the U.S., British and Canadian forces. He continued producing aircraft, including a flying yacht or a monoplane flying boat. Loening became known in the aviation manufacturing industry, eventually forming his own company. In 1937, he joined the federal government as chief adviser to the National Advisory Committee on aeronautics. And he continued as a private aviation consultant.